Unix: History, Philosophy, Influence

CCS Computer Science 10 Unix: History, Philosophy, Influence, a student colloquium on Unix led by me, Douglas Thrift, at UCSB in Spring 2006.

Table of Contents

• Description
• Schedule
• Recommended Reading
• Course Outline
• Student Presentations

Description

[douglas@zweihander:~]$ cat UNIX UNIX: History, Philosophy, Influence Since 1970, the development of operating systems has been influenced more by UNIX and its derivatives than by any other operating system. This class covers the origins and effects of UNIX in detail, potentially exposing key factors of its relevance as useful tenets of operating system design and philosophy. In less academic words, this class teaches students all about UNIX, and discusses what we can learn from it. Students will be asked to give presentations on various facets of the UNIX universe based on the discussion in the course. [douglas@zweihander:~]$ █

Schedule

Wednesday 5:30-7:30 PM Room 145, Building 494

Recommended Reading

Note: Selections from these texts are available as Handouts for students. More texts may be listed as the course progresses.

• Peter H. Salus A Quarter Century of UNIX
• Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie The C Programming Language
• Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J. Karels, and John S. Quarterman The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD® UNIX Operating System

Course Outline

Note: This is subject to change.

1. April 5, 2006
   • Introductions
   • Stuff
   • What is an Operating System?
   • What is Unix?
2. April 12, 2006
   • What is Unix? (continued) The File System
   • The State of Operating Systems and Computing in the Late 1960s
   • AT&T Bell Labs and Multics
   • Anti Trust/Consent Decree AT&T
   • Assembly, B, and C
3. April 19, 2006
   • Where was Unix Going?
   • Why?
   • Utilities
   • Pipes
   • The Shell
4. April 26, 2006
   • Where was Unix Going? (again)
   • Why? (again)
   • BSD
   • Devices
   • File System (4.3BSD Fast File System)
5. May 3, 2006
   • POSIX
   • Unix Wars
   • UUCP
   • Networks
   • Sockets
6. May 10, 2006
   • Microsoft Xenix
   • The Santa Cruz Operation
7. May 17, 2006
   • Brian Fox
   • The Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project
8. May 24, 2006
   • Mach
   • NeXT
   • Windows NT
   • Minix
   • Linux
9. May 31, 2006
   • FreeBSD
   • Student Presentations
     • Alex: Plan 9 from Bell Labs
     • Nick: Linux
     • Drew: Unix in Mac OS X
     • Britta: AT&T UNIX Journal Articles
     • Seth: NetBSD and OpenBSD Split
10. June 7, 2006
    • Student Presentations
      • Hans: Unix Process Schedulers
      • Tim W.: C99
      • Collin: GNU Hurd
      • Max: Language Mabob
      • Tim R.: History of vi

Student Presentations

You will need to give an individual presentation that shows some in-depth research into some aspect of Unix. The presentations will be given in the last 2 weeks of the quarter and should be 10 to 15 minutes long.

[douglas@nameless:~]$ fortune Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. -- Henry Spencer [douglas@nameless:~]$ █

Copyright © 2002-2008, Douglas Thrift. All Rights Reserved.